Boston’s Cool Dog Is the Sweet Stuff of Legend

Like many kids in New England, I grew up with ice cream in the freezer all year round. There were the usual suspects — pints of Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s — and when I was on my best behavior, I’d convince my Nana to spring for the good stuff, the novelties. My regional delicacies of choice were ice cream treats shaped like other foods, specifically the Friendly’s Wattamelon Roll and the far more polarizing and modern marvel, the Cool Dog.

Ayo Edebiri, the Emmy Award-winning star of The Bear, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, shares my affinity for the quirky delicacy. She described the nostalgic novelty on Late Night with Seth Meyers: a “dog” of vanilla ice cream in a bun of vanilla cake with whipped cream and chocolate sauce as the condiments. Creators Peter and Tara Franklin spent years developing the revolutionary dessert, far ahead of its time, as other brands followed suit with their own spins on hot dog-shaped ice cream treats decades later, like Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream’s collaboration with chef Daniel Boulud on the DBGB Cool Dog in 2016 and Oscar Mayer’s Cold Dogs in 2022.

Peter first began testing the Cool Dog in the late ’90s, and in 2000 he left his job to prototype the novelty and establish his company. “You wouldn’t believe the number of cakes we baked in our kitchen. It had to be thin and it had to bend, which is hard to do. We found one and had a stack of them in our kitchen, and the next morning we found that the cake was all eaten down the side because our cat really liked it,” Tara says.

The production process took two steps, first crafting the links of ice cream and then assembling the dogs. “I developed a new process to make ice cream in the shape of a hot dog. You’d have to put the ice cream under so much pressure that when we used the regular hot dog equipment, it would be so strong that it ended up spraying ice cream all over the wall.”

The Franklins worked closely with Rhino Foods in Burlington, Vermont, the brand behind the cookie dough chunks in pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. “They would co-pack the ice cream and ship it down in one long, 50-foot length of hot dog links. The ice cream links would all be in cellulose casing and then we had a facility where we would strip the cellulose off and put the links into the cake and package them.”

Once they finished the prototype and filed the patents, the Franklins took the dog on the road to IAAPA, the International Association of Amusements and Attractions. “We were just a tiny little booth off in the corner; we were rookies. But we ended up being the number one new product at IAAPA.” Tara says.

Once the Cool Dog took the top prize at IAAPA, stadiums and amusement parks throughout the East Coast expressed interest. Cool Dogs landed at Fenway Park in Boston, Universal Studios in Orlando, Six Flags in Massachusetts, and Story Land in New Hampshire. From there, the Cool Dog took off in regional supermarkets, like Roche Bros. and Stop & Shop.

At the height of the Cool Dog’s popularity, the ice cream was available in more than 250 locations, when the Franklins entertained the idea of selling the business to Nestle but say the 2008 recession prevented it.

In 2009, the couple sold the business to Boston-based entrepreneur Dan Weil who continued operations for several years. Weil made some changes to the manufacturing process, selling roughly 2 million Cool Dogs before eventually calling the dogs off and closing up shop in 2016.

While Edebiri revealed that she still contemplates ordering the “foul and perfect” treat online late at night, there’s bad news for fellow fans of the Cool Dog: The New England-born specialty seems to be a thing of the past. Weil discontinued his website in April and has no plans to bring the ice cream hot dog back to market. “The only Cool Dogs I know that still exist are the ones in my freezer, and they’re about 12 years old,” he says.

Edebiri is in luck — the latest hot dog-flavored and shaped ice cream treat is available at the Museum of Ice Cream in Chicago. Named the Chicago Ice Cream Dog, the treat sandwiches hot dog-flavored soft serve in a pink bun from local Milano Bakery, complete with poppy seeds, mustard, and relish. What better way to savor her home away from home?

Of course, anyone can salvage the original flavor memory with our recipes for vanilla cake and vanilla ice cream while holding out hope for the Cool Dog to make a comeback.